First Name:
Lisa
Last Name:
Hash
Major Department:
Elementary Education
Date of Thesis:
May 2009
Social justice arises when all the various groups in our global community are treated fairly and equitable, providing equal opportunities for everyone to live a productive and empowered life. Attaining a state of social justice is idealistic but achievable when we teach the youngest members of our society, elementary-school students, to become aware of injustices, to empathize with others, and to turn their thoughts and words into actions, becoming activists for social justice. By teaching these three basic elements of social justice – awareness, empathy, an activism – to children at a young age, we are providing them with the knowledge and skills necessary to carry the message of social justice into the future.
This social justice curriculum, focusing on the Japanese American internment camps in the United States during World War II, was designed to study the impact of reading, writing about, and discussing multicultural historical fiction novel Weedflower on student awareness, empathy, and activism. Students participate in an Internet workshop, authentic writing based on the novel, discussion, and shared writing of I-poetry from the perspectives of characters in Weedflower, At the end of the unit, students write a “We Are” poem as a class to tell what they have learned in the unit and the message they want to share with others about social justice. A movie of these poems, uploaded to TeacherTube, spreads the message of social justice and social activism beyond the borders of this fifth-grade classroom.
This social justice curriculum was implemented in two fifth-grade classrooms and the date collection and analyses continue. The impact on students was measured using surveys, student response journals, observations, transcriptions of videos taken during class discussions, blog posts and comments, I-poetry, “We Are” poetry, interviews, and student-initiated blogs. Preliminary results indicate the impact of this unit on students by showing a trend in heightened levels of student awareness of injustices, empathy for others, and participation in social activism.